Hastings International and Comparative Law Review Volume 14 | Number 4 Article 11 1-1-1991 Protection of Endangered Gorillas and Chimpanzees in International Trade: Can CITES Help Valerie Karno Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_international_comparative_law_review Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Valerie Karno, Protection of Endangered Gorillas and Chimpanzees in International Trade: Can CITES Help, 14 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 989 (1991). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_international_comparative_law_review/vol14/iss4/11 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Protection of Endangered Gorillas and Chimpanzees in International Trade: Can CITES Help? By VALERIE KARNO* Member of the Class of 1991 I. INTRODUCION At least forty thousand primates are traded internationally every year.' Of these, at least thirteen thousand are sold illegally.2 Smugglers are currently trading live, endangered primates throughout the world,3 and statistics indicate that unless this trade is stopped, certain primates, such as the gorilla and wild chimpanzee, will shortly be extinct.4 Over the last twenty years, commerce practices have caused between forty and ninety thousand needless chimpanzee deaths.5 The effect of these deaths on the viability of the species is profound. Field surveys estimate the current world chimpanzee population at less than 250,000 individuals. 6 In Western Africa, where over one million chimpanzees * B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1987. Special thanks is extended to Dr. Geza Teleki for his valuable assistance and commentary. 1. World Trade in Wildlife, TRAFFIC (U.S.A.), Oct. 1990, at 1. All the numerical figures presented in this paper represent only those animals traded with documentation. Large numbers of animals move without documentation, so these numbers are rough minimal esti- mates at best. Many more animals have actually been traded than can be represented by the statistics in this Note. Telephone interview with Geza Teleki, Chairman of the Committee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees [CCCC] (Feb. 13, 1991). 2. This figure is consistent with and reflective of the fact that about one-third of all U.S. imports are illegal. Fuller, Hemley & Fitzgerald, Wildlife Trade Law Implementation in Devel- oping Countries The Experience in Latin America, 5 B.U. INT'L LJ. 287, 290 (1987) (citing Division of Law Enforcement, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Wild- life Import Statistics). Worldwide trade figures are likely to be similar. 3. See infra text accompanying notes 107-09, 120, 123, 130 for examples of recent smug- gling activity. 4. 1rimate Trade, TRAFFIC (U.S.A.), Mar. 1989, at I [hereinafter Primate Trade]. 5. CCCC, CHIMPANZEE SURVIVAL: A CRISIS FOR GLOBAL CONCERN 1 (1990) [herein- after CCCC, CHIMPANZEE SURVIVAL]. Forty to ninety thousand chimpanzees have not actu- ally been taken from Africa. Rather, this figure represents the total extermination rate accompanying trade, and includes the mothers who have been killed but were never intended to be, and never have been, traded. 6. Id Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. [Vol. 14 used to live, now a mere 10,000 survive.7 There are only 300 to 350 wild mountain gorillas left in the entire world,' one-third living in the impene- trable forest in Uganda, and the other two-thirds living in the Virunga Volcanoes near the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and Zaire.9 There are fewer than 100,000 lowland gorillas, starting in the far east of Nigeria, and living in Cameroon, Gabon, Zaire, Equatorial Guinea, and the Congo Republic.1" Although the chimpanzee and the gorilla are the two animals most closely related to humans on this planet, we are pushing them towards extinction for commercial reasons. Genetically, chimpanzees have a ninety-nine percent overlap with humans; they also have similar psycho- logical and behavioral patterns.'" For instance, they can learn, and can communicate with humans and other chimpanzees through sign lan- guage.' 2 Tragically, these similarities give rise to a high demand for these live primates, and consequently, zoos pay large sums of money for live gorillas, and biomedical research companies pay large sums for chimpanzees.' 3 These monetary incentives provide smugglers ample 1 4 cause to pursue the trading of these species. However, the methods of trading chimpanzees and gorillas have drastically depleted the populations of both species, and are economically 7. Id 8. Butynski, The ImpenetrableForest-Refuge for the Mountain Gorilla, INTERNATIONAL PRIMATE PROTECTION LEAGUE [IPPL] NEWSL., Nov. 1987, at 9. 9. There are other gorillas in captivity in zoos across the world. Id. 10. Telephone interview with Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman of IPPL (Feb. 19, 1991), 11. CCCC, CHIMPANZEE SURVIVAL, supra note 5, at 2. 12. Id. Though this Note focuses on extinction, and not welfare, it is important to note that chimpanzees and gorillas can also suffer as can humans, and so should be treated with compassion. Scientists have stated that there are "not one but four species of the genus Homo exist[ing] on earth today-the gorilla, Homo gorilla; the two chimpanzees, Homo troglodytes and Homo paniscus; and the human, Homo sapiens." Peoplefor the Ethical Treatment ofAnl mals, PETA NEws, Spring 1987, at 1. Jeremey Bentham wrote that "liltmay one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, [or] the villosity of the skin.., are reasons... insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being.... The question is not, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" Id. at 4 (emphasis in original). It is important to prevent the unwarranted mis- treatment of these highly advanced animals who indeed do have a tremendous capacity for suffering. Unfortunately, there is not room to do this subject justice in this Note. 13. See infra text accompanying notes 25-26 for sample priccs paid for chimpanzees and gorillas. Chimpanzees and gorillas are traded for different purposes: biomedical research com- panies are largely responsible for the chimpanzee trade, while zoos are responsible for gorilla trading. Most zoos trading gorillas are found in the developing Third World countries, though certainly not all. Japan, Spain, and Eastern Europe also have imp)rted gorillas into their zoos. Telephone interview with Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman of IPPL (Feb. 19, 1991). 14. See Primate Trade, supra note 4, at 1. 1991] Endangered Gorillas and Chimpanzees inefficient. Normally, ten chimpanzees die before one is delivered.1 5 Smugglers typically target nursing infants one to two years old for trade. 6 To retrieve the infant, poachers will shoot the mother and seize the child. 7 Since chimpanzees move together, four to five adult chim- panzees are often murdered to capture a single offspring.' 8 Furthermore, at least ninety percent of captured animals die en route to their trade destination because of abhorent packing conditions.19 They suffer lingering and painful deaths from freezing, overheating, de- hydration, starvation, or suffocation because they are locked in small crates with their feet and hands bound together during transportation on airplanes or ships.20 Moreover, the new double incentive to receive both money and food from a chimpanzee increases population depletion. In Africa, primate species have traditionally been hunted for food. Now, the monetary in- centive for poaching greatly increases the likelihood of an endangered primate's death.2 Hunters can receive twice the profit they used to get from killing primates solely for food;' now poachers can shoot mothers for food and also sell the mothers' infants to dealers.' As the Commit- tee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees has explained, "these cash incentives ...increase decimation of exactly that segment of chim- panzee society which is most essential to survival."'" This accelerated population depletion is occurring because individ- ual primate dealers profit so greatly from trading chimpanzees and goril- las. A primate dealer will spend a maximum of 1000 U.S. dollars delivering a live chimpanzee or gorilla from Africa to another country."5 The dealer will be paid 20,000 to 50,000 dollars per chimpanzee, and will receive much more for a gorilla.26 Thus, a dealer will earn at least 24,000 15. CCCC, STATUS REPORT: THE CHIMPANZEE TRADE 1 (1990) [hereinafter CCCC, CHIMPANZEE TRADE]. 16. Id 17. Id 18. See id 19. See id 20. See id 21. CCCC, CURRENT THREATS TO THE SURVIVAL OF CHIMPANZEES IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA 29 (1987) [hereinafter CCCC, CURRENT THREATS]. 22. Id 23. Id 24. Id 25. The dealer will spend $100.00-S400.00 acquiring the animal, and will spend a few hundred dollars shipping the animal overseas. Telephone interview with Geza Teleki, Chair- man of CCCC (Nov. 29, 1990). 26. Id For example, the Guadalajara Zoo in Mexico paid S130,000.00 for two wild- caught gorillas exported from Equatorial Guinea in June 1989. Update on Mexican Gorillas, Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. [Vol. 14 dollars per primate. This money will generally be tax exempt because payments are made to Swiss banks.27 Stringent imposition of trade re- strictions will help curb the double incentive to poach because dealers will be less able to successfully complete transactions, will thus derive less profit from smuggling, and will then be less inclined to offer incentive to poachers to capture wild primates. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ecosystem Conservation Group (ECG)28 issued the fol- lowing policy statement in 1981 in favor of strictly enforcing trade re- strictions for endangered primates: The WHO strongly recommends that (1) endingered, vulnerable and rare species be considered for use in biomedical research projects only if they are obtained from existing self-sustaining captive breeding colo- nies ...